Ronson pumps in £350m to snap up Total stations

Billionaire Gerald Ronson
returned to a market he first
cornered almost half a century
ago when he struck a £350million
deal to grab hundreds of filling
stations from French rival
Total.

Ronson’s petrol forecourt
business Snax 24 is part of a
consortium, called Rontec
Investments, comprising private
equity house Grovepoint
and South African bank
Investec that will buy 810
service stations from Total in
the UK.

However, the consortium has
agreed to sell 254 sites to Royal
Dutch Shell for £240million. The
whole deal is expected to conclude
at the end of the year.

This will leave Snax 24
running 556 sites across the
country.

Tycoon: Ronson has given away millions to charity

Prior to this purchase
Ronson, who is
better known for his landmark
property interests such as the
46-storey Heron Tower in the
City, had let his forecourt business
slip to 84 sites.

But as crude oil and petrol
prices have risen he recently
said: ‘I think there are going to
be big opportunities in petrol
retailing in the next three to
five years.’

Petrol costs have climbed
steadily for the past two-anda-
half years from 86.6p per
litre in January 2009 to an estimated
average of 136.9p per
litre in May 2011. On a 40-litre
fill-up, this means an extra £20
at the pump for motorists.

Ronson, 71, said yesterday:
‘This transaction marks Snax
24’s return to the fuel business
in scale.’

He added that his independent
business ‘will enable us to
create further opportunities
and drive innovation’.

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Ronson started his career
working in the family furniture
business, named Heron after
his father Henry, but soon
branched out into filling stations
in the 1960s. He pioneered
self-service petrol
stations and was one of the
first to put shops on his
forecourts.
He is famously obsessive
about the quality and service
at his petrol stations, and
often spends weekends making
unannounced visits.

Over the years more than
1,000 forecourts have passed
through his hands and at its
height, Ronson’s business
owned 10 per cent of the industry.
He then moved on into
property.

Ronson remains one of the
most colourful businessmen in
the City and has given away
millions to charity.

He built a fortune, lost it
when he was jailed in 1990
after the Guinness insider
dealing trial, and built it up
again after his release.